


Lost

by axiumin



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, M/M, Other, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 17:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17584772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axiumin/pseuds/axiumin
Summary: Unfortunately for EXO, you have a terrible sense of direction.





	1. Xiumin

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from tumblr. Come say hi to me @axiumin!

It was a beautiful day for a walk in the botanical garden. As you strolled around, Minseok’s hand clasped tightly in yours, you basked in the sunlight and breathed in the aroma of all of the lovely flowers. Everything was picturesque: the lush greens, the vibrant blossoms, the small, babbling waterfall off the side of the path.

Actually, come to think of it, hadn’t you seen that same small, babbling waterfall already? Twice?

You and Minseok came to a halt in the middle of the footpath, both of you staring at the waterfall.

“Y/N…” Minseok started slowly. “I’m sure we’ve passed here before. Are you sure you know where you’re going?” You turned your head towards him, and replied just as slowly.

“Do I know where I’m going? Minseok, I thought I was following you.”

He looked at you with wide eyes. “Y/N, I thought I was following you!” You blinked owlishly.

“That’s… objectively a terrible idea,” you replied, remembering all the times your sense of direction has failed you. “But I think I remember seeing a map somewhere! I’m sure if we keep walking, we’ll find it.”

You looked around in hopes of seeing a sign somewhere, but you were just met with more expanses of lush vegetation. Well, things could be worse.

“I suppose we can’t get more lost than we already are,” Minseok mused. “Besides, it’s a beautiful day and I’m with you. It’s the perfect time to get lost, don’t you think?”


	2. Suho

Traveling abroad was always exciting. You never had much of an opportunity to travel outside of the country when you were younger, but Junmyeon apparently made it his personal mission to take you to as many new places as he could.

Incidentally, this was how you ended up in a small town somewhere in Northern Europe, a bit too lost for your liking.

“I think you want to continue on this road for… six kilometers? Or is that eight?” you murmured, half to yourself.

Junmyeon, bless him, had grown accustomed to your poor sense of direction. Why he still put you in charge of the map any time you go driving somewhere was anyone’s guess, really. You suspected there might have been some part of him that found your terrible navigation amusing, but you couldn’t really see the charm when you were this lost and without the luxury of a GPS.

“I don’t think we have six kilometers of road left. Or eight.” Junmyeon was right. You could see up ahead that the road came to a T-intersection. You would have to choose between a left and a right turn.

Gnawing on your lip, you scrutinized the map with renewed effort, turning it this way and that to try to discern its secrets.

As your car approached the intersection, Junmyeon sensibly pulled over to the side of the road and took the map from you. You huffed out a breath, but you were secretly relieved to have this burden off your shoulders. You were pleased when Junmyeon squinted at the map and turned it about just as you had done a moment ago.

You raised your eyebrows at him as if to say, _See? It’s not as easy as you think._ But it went unnoticed as Junmyeon made a choking noise and turned to look at you in a mix of disbelief and— adoration?

“Y/N,” he started, a half-disbelieving grin spreading across his face. You didn’t like the looks of this.

“What?” You sounded a bit petulant, even to yourself.

“Darling. Sunshine of my life.” At this point, Junmyeon’s shoulders started to shake with poorly contained laughter.

“ _What?_ ” You definitely sounded petulant this time.

“This is the wrong map. We passed through this country already. We’re in a whole other country now.” The only sound in the car was that of his restrained snickers.

Wordlessly, you opened your bag and pulled out the correct map, resolutely ignoring Junmyeon as you found your bearings.

“It’s a left,” you said shortly.

Next time, you’d bring a GPS.


	3. Lay

If you get lost and don’t have a GPS, it stands to reason that the next best option is to stop and ask someone for directions. Right?

Well, maybe it works for everyone but you and Yixing.

See, the first time you suggested you stop for directions, it was an easygoing affair. Yixing pulled over, a helpful local pointed out the right way to go, and you were on your way. But fifteen minutes later, you somehow managed to reach a dead end. So you again did the reasonable thing and pulled over to ask for directions from another helpful local.

Except this time, the local, as helpful as she may have intended to be, didn’t seem very sure where to send you either. She just sort of shrugged and said, “If you keep going east, you’ll get there.” Still, you and Yixing both nodded and said your thanks. But when he rolled up his window, you two looked at each other with identically perplexed faces.

“Which direction is east?” you asked, looking around as if there would somehow be a helpful sign to show you the cardinal directions.

“We can probably tell by the position of the sun,” he suggested hopefully.

You both looked up at the sky to find the sun hidden behind a layer of clouds. So much for that option.

“I guess we can just go by what feels right?” you tried, not even pretending to sound convinced.

The corner of Yixing’s mouth twitched up a bit.

“What feels right, hmm?” He made a show of closing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his temples. When he opened his eyes, he pointed confidently to the left. “That feels like it might be east!”

You weren’t about to doubt him, especially since you had no way of knowing the cardinal directions for yourself. So with another shrug, the two of you set off towards what you hoped was the east.

At least the drive was pleasant. Half an hour into your venture “east,” the sun broke free from the clouds, revealing a gorgeous blue sky. Music softly played in the car’s speakers, and the windows were cracked open just enough to let in the warm, late-afternoon air. Yixing’s hand rested on your thigh, your fingers intertwined as he hummed along with the music.

You decided that even if you didn’t get to where you were going, at least you were enjoying the beautiful ride into the sunset.

Wait.

“We’re driving towards the sunset? Yixing, we’re going _west_!”


	4. Baekhyun

“Baekhyun,” you murmured worriedly, unable to tear your eyes away from the screen. “I think I’m lost.”

“In my eyes?” Baekhyun replied absently. You knew without looking that he was still staring at the screen, too.

“No! I mean, yes, sometimes. But that’s not what I mean. I mean I’m really _lost_. I have no idea where I am anymore!” Your voice tightened with helplessness, and that finally got Baekhyun to turn away from his monitor to take a look at yours.

“Yah, Y/N, it’s not even that big of a map. How did you manage to get lost?”

You just shrugged. You’d never really been good at video games that weren’t Animal Crossings or Mario Kart, so you’re not that surprised that a first-person shooter would confuse you with its hidey-holes and nooks. Honestly, you were only playing this game in the first place because you knew Baekhyun liked it and you thought it would be nice to share in one of his hobbies.

But so far, all you’d managed to do was die a few times and get lost, so you supposed it wasn’t going as swimmingly as you’d hoped.

Baekhyun sighed and reached over to take the controller out of your hand so he could try to find out where in the map you’d managed to get lost. You watched, feeling a bit worried, as his brow furrowed in consternation. He flipped through a couple of menus and glanced back and forth between his screen and yours, looking increasingly perplexed.

“This wasn’t such a good idea, was it? Me playing with you?” you asked, voice small.

Baekhyun shook his head, his consternation melting into a surprised smile.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “If anything, I think I got you playing the wrong game. Let’s get you playing an open-world RPG!”

“Huh? Why?” you asked, just as lost in the conversation as you were in the game.

“Y/N, I think you found a whole new part of the map! I didn’t even know this part existed! Let’s get you exploring, huh?”

You weren’t personally so keen on getting lost in another game, but Baekhyun’s smile made you soft, and you knew you couldn’t say no to him.


	5. Chen

Okay, this time, it was actually not your fault.

You knew better than to trust yourself to remember where to go, which was why you always chose to rely on GPS. Normally, things work out perfectly, and you’re able to get to where you need to go without a hitch.

It’s just that today, there was some unexpected road construction, and when you tried to follow the detour suggested by your GPS, you ended up in another construction area. By the time you finally broke free of construction, you were in a completely different part of the city from where you wanted to be.

“So,” started Jongdae, who had hitherto contented himself by watching you drive away from the restaurant where you had reservations waiting for you.

“Don’t start,” you warned, resolutely keeping your eyes on the road. In the corner of your eye, you could see Jongdae still staring at you, just smiling.

To be fair, it wasn’t like Jongdae really had a leg to stand on; his sense of direction was only marginally better than yours, and you were both sure that he couldn’t do much better than you. So he just settled more comfortably in the passenger seat and turned to watch the scenery pass by.

“Well, I suppose this is a nice part of town, too,” he mused, resting a comforting hand and your leg.

You sighed and took a moment to actually look around instead of focusing intently on street signs. You were somewhat surprised to see that he was right. It was rather quaint, with brick buildings and lush green grass. To be honest, you weren’t sure if you’d actually ever been to this part of town before.

As you stopped at a red light, both you and Jongdae honed in on the small cafe at the corner of the intersection. Jongdae laced his fingers with yours and brought your hand up to his mouth to press a kiss to your knuckles.

“What do you say? Plan B?”

You smiled back at him, too full of love.

“Yeah, let’s try plan B.”


	6. Chanyeol

This wasn’t by any means the first time you’d gotten lost. It’s just that normally, when you did get lost, you didn’t manage to do so in a shopping mall.

It was uncanny; one moment, you were window shopping with Chanyeol, and the next, you were standing near the food court with no clear recollection of how you got there in the first place— and with no Chanyeol in sight.

For a moment, you just stood in place, letting the crowd part around you as you considered what your next move should be. On one hand, a churro sounded pretty good right now, and there was a stand selling them oh-so-conveniently right beside you. But you dismissed that thought, thinking that at least it’d be good of you to be somewhat proactive in getting yourself un-lost.

So with this in mind, you set off in what you think to be a likely direction.

It was, in hindsight, perhaps not as likely of a direction as you may have liked. About ten minutes of walking later, you somehow managed to find yourself in an altogether unfamiliar part of the mall. For one dizzying moment, you had to wonder if you didn’t somehow wind up in an entirely different mall. Honestly, if it could happen to anyone, it’d probably be you.

You looked around helplessly, trying to find some familiar sign or store, when you caught side of a very familiar head of hair peeking above the crowd. Hoping beyond hope that this was actually him, you called out.

“Chanyeol!” you yelled, not caring about the glares that earned you. Your attention was solely focused on the head of fluffy hair that whipped around at the sound of your voice.

“Y/N?” you heard, and you couldn’t contain your sigh of relief when Chanyeol emerged from the throng of mallgoers to grab your shoulders. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“It’s a good thing you’re so tall,” you said in greeting, cheerfully ignoring his exasperation. “It makes it easier to find you in a crowd.”

Chanyeol rolled his eyes and smiled, carefully tucking your arm in his.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make it any easier to find _you_. Come on, I’m not letting you go until we get home.”


	7. D.O.

“How long have you lived in your apartment again?”

You side-eyed Kyungsoo, knowing what he was really asking.

“Look, I _know_ I should know the address by now. I just... never got around to remembering it?” Yeah, it sounded pretty bad when you said it aloud like that. But still, you should be able to manage, right?

Except you were on the opposite side of the city from where you apartment was, and you really couldn’t think of how to get home from here. And without the address, it wasn’t like you could just pull up directions.

You supposed the next best thing would be to get to a part of town you were more familiar with and then just go home from there, right?

“Wait, were we supposed to turn left on that street?” You craned your head as you passed the intersection, trying to see if you could catch a glimpse of a familiar storefront or street sign.

“Were we? Do you recognize the area?” Kyungsoo asked without a hint of sarcasm. And, really, he was far more patient with you than anyone else you knew. Bless those capricorns, honestly.

You sighed and settled back into the passenger seat, a bit embarrassed that you’d be this bad at finding your actual home in the actual city that you actually lived in.

“I’m sure we’ll see something familiar soon,” you offered. But really, you weren’t all that sure.

And for good reason, too. After fifteen minutes of giving Kyungsoo almost arbitrary directions (“Take a right up at that light. And then the second left. And… maybe the left after that?”), you ended up back where you started when he first offered to drive you home.

Kyungsoo really was patient with you— saintlike, nearly— but you could tell his patience was wearing thin with each glance he shot your way. You returned his looks with a somewhat uncertain smile, and he finally sighed.

“Honestly, Y/N,” he said. “How about you just move in with me?”

And it wasn’t exactly how you expected that stage of your relationship to go, but you suppose needs must. At least this way, you’d never have to worry about a forgotten address.


	8. Kai

“Jongin, no.”

“Jongin, _yes_.”

You stared in mild horror at the t-shirt he held out to you. It was a garish orange and it said in bold black lettering, “IF LOST, RETURN TO JONGIN.” Jongin was wearing an equally garish orange shirt that read, “I AM JONGIN.”

“Look, Y/N, we’ve been together long enough to know how easy it is to lose you in a crowd,” he said. You supposed this was kinder than him saying, ‘You get lost all the damn time.’

Your lip curled in disgust. “I know I get lost, but really? Is _this_ necessary? We’re going to the fair, Jongin. It’s not like it’s especially dangerous if I do get lost for a bit.” But Jongin was already shaking his head before you finished speaking.

“Y/N,” he said seriously. “You may not realize it, but fairs are the most dangerous places of them all to get lost! Where do you think the fair workers come from? They’re not hired; they’re _taken_!” He punctuated this by lurching forward to wiggle his fingers against your sides.

You shrieked and tugged away from him, trying in vain to calm your giggles.

“Fine, fine!” you cried. “I’ll wear the ugly shirt!”

Jongin smiled at you, all charm, and you grumbled and pulled the shirt over your head to hide the way his smile _still_ made your face heat.

When the shirt was finally on, you winced at your reflection. Well, if nothing else, you doubted Jongin would even be able to lose sight of you in the first place, what with that hideously bright shade of orange.

Jongin’s reflection appeared behind yours and he wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“I know you don’t like it,” he murmured low in your ear, causing you to shiver. “But think of it as a preventative measure.”

“Yeah,” you replied. “It’ll prevent anyone from thinking that we’re just a normal couple trying to enjoy the fair.”

Jongin scoffed, “We’re not an ordinary couple, Y/N. We’re couple goals.”


	9. Sehun

You knew you were in trouble when Sehun called you in the middle of the day and started with, “I’m lost. I need you to help me out.”

Part of you was incredibly flattered that you were the first person Sehun would think to call in a time of need. You’d like to think it was a sign that your relationship was going pretty well.

The other part of you dreaded the fact that you were surely about to let him down so badly that you would never be the first person he called again— and that’s if he even wanted to talk to you after you got him even more lost than before.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit dramatic, but still. You were probably the last person anyone should call if they’re lost. And you tried to tell Sehun this, but he just waved off your concerns.

“No, it’s fine. I’m just not getting enough data for the map to load properly here. If I send you my location, you can pull up the map and tell me where to go. It’ll give you the directions and everything. All you need to do is read them to me. Just make sure you choose walking directions.”

Well, when he put it that way, it did sound pretty straightforward.

“Okay,” you said, voice hard and determined. “Send me your location. Let’s _do_ this. Let’s make history.”

“...Honestly, I think you’re being just a little bit more dramatic than you need to be here,” Sehun murmured.

“Noted.”

Your phone pinged to notify you that you’d received his location. You put your phone on speaker so you could type in his location and destination in the map app, and you were pleased when it loaded the directions just as easily as Sehun had said.

“Okay,” you started. “It looks like you need to take your first right. That should be in about 200 meters.”

All you heard was rustling and footsteps for a moment as Sehun did as you said.

“What’s next?” he prompted.

Just like that, you went through the list of directions as they appeared on your phone, and Sehun obediently followed them. The whole process took the better part of half an hour, but you felt a swell of pride as you announced, “That’s it! The destination should be on your right.”

But instead of hearing any sort of “Thank you, Y/N,” or “You’re an angel, Y/N, I have no idea what I’d do without you,” you just heard silence from the line. Your smile melted off of your face.

“Sehun?” You heard a deep breath from the other side of the line.

“Y/N, did you enter in the right address?”

You scowled and double checked the address you entered into the app.

“Of course, I entered the right address. I copied and pasted, so—” You cut yourself off abruptly. “...Oh.”

“Oh?” Sehun echoed back. And oh, you could tell that one of his eyebrows was raised without even seeing his face.

“Sehun, you love me, right?” you asked, voice sickly sweet and wavering with a combination of repressed laughter and horror.

“Of course I do, Y/N. What did you do?”

“I accidentally set your location as your destination and your destination as your location.” You took a breath. “The directions were reversed.”

You were met with a long silence that was only broken by an equally long sigh.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“I do love you. I always will. But I think from now on I’m going to just call Suho first.”

You nodded.

“That’s fair.”


End file.
